Succulents and More™

My main focus this past month has been on renovating parts of the backyard. The first step was removing a large Agave chiapensis , as detailed in this post . Then I dismantled the remaining two raised beds in the side yard on the north side. They were originally built for vegetables, but they’d fallen into disuse in recent years because growing vegetables in our climate requires a lot of water and effort – and the payoff often is disappointing. The soil in these raised beds was shockingly sandy. No wonder vegetables didn’t do too well. After I’d taken out the horizontal bed, I evenly distributed the soil from both beds to form a base layer. I had to reuse the soil somehow. The bougainvillea at the left in the next photo, a variegated dwarf cultivar called ‘Bambino Sophia’, is the only plant that has remained. It’s thrived on neglect for a number of years and has earned the right to stay. Then it was time for the delivery truck: Half a cubic yard of crushed rock... ...four cubic yards o

When one door shuts, the saying goes, another door opens. But sometimes all we get is one door shutting without another one opening. In fact, that one door slams shut so forcefully that chances are it will never open again. That’s what happened this past Thursday, October 3. With no advance notice, Annie’s Annuals in Richmond ceased to exist. And just like that, the gardening scene in Northern California is changed forever. In fact, the shockwaves will be felt far beyond our area, seeing how Annie’s had loyal mail-order customers all over the country. The next day, customers received the official email: “Beloved” is not an adjective typically applied to a business, but in this case, it fits perfectly. Annie’s Annuals – technically Annie’s Annuals & Perennials, but for most of us simply Annie’s – was something as rare as a unicorn: a nursery with a selection so large that there was something for everybody, with all plants grown right on site in the Goldilocks climate of Richmond, C